“Come, sit. We can talk about it,” Vista said. “Or say the word and I’ll find another spot.”

He walked over, and he sat.

Rain and Theo found their own cots. If Rain was bothered by the quality of his mattress, he didn’t comment. He’d carried his issued blanket with him and draped it over himself without much of a care.

Golem, meanwhile, just sat.

“What are the rules or boundaries?” Vista asked.

“What?” Byron asked.

“Like, just for the sake of argument, if you were to start seeing a girl, what are the rules of engagement?”

I turned to look at Vista, my eyes widening. She ignored me.

“I’m not sure I would. I don’t think it’s fair to the girl. Too many hurdles, too much baggage.”

“We all have baggage. We could all die at any time, that’s life as a cape. Put those things together and if we wait to get over our baggage we’re liable to end up dead before we get anywhere.”

Morbid pickup line there, Vista.

“True. It’s still messy, if you ignore all of that. If we expect to die sometime soon, we don’t want the meantime to be full of angst and anger, right?”

“Right, so we talk. Negotiate. Where are we at, Byron? If a girl says she likes you, what does it take, what’s off the table?”

“I could make an educated guess, but I dunno. I thought I had a good idea of it before and then things all went wrong. Couldn’t go to third base, probably not even second. I’d hesitate before even kissing, and if the line’s drawn there…”

“Doesn’t feel much like a relationship,” Vista said.

“No. Which isn’t fair to the girl.”

“Your kid teammate over there was talking a bit about finding her way to a less lonely place. Protecting those close to her, having people she’s connected to while she sleeps.”

“They’re doing it while they sleep?” Byron asked, alarmed, leaning forward to get a better view of Kenzie. “Is that just because of this whole thing, or—”

“Focus. Focus,” Vista said, pushing him back down to a sitting position. “Can’t do anything about it.”

“Uh huh,” he said.

Vista had pushed him down, and she didn’t move her hand from his chest.

“I think you’re cool. I like the words that come out of your mouth when you talk. And I think Tristan’s really neat too, I think he’s fun and he’s good company. If you want to try to figure out what you and me look like, and if Tristan was cool with it, I’d want to try. You, me, Tristan, and what I imagine are a lot of rules and boundaries that keep things peaceful.”

“Did you talk to my team to figure out how to approach this?”